Officials at the Allegheny County Jail reported another death Thursday night, this time involving an unidentified 60-year-old male booked into the facility for retail theft on Monday.
It is the second death tied to the jail this month, after 42-year-old James Washington was transferred to UPMC Mercy after being found unresponsive on May 7. Both men tested positive for opiates when being booked and were placed on a “detox protocol.” The incidents marked the 18th and 19th jail-associated deaths since 2020, though some deaths happened in healthcare facilities elsewhere.
According to a statement from the jail Thursday, the man who died this week was found to be unresponsive around 4 p.m. Staff administered CPR until paramedics arrived, but he was pronounced dead at the site roughly half an hour later.
A spokesperson for the jail said officials could not comment on details about the death or the circumstances surrounding it because it was under investigation. In its statement, the county touted an “increased focus on intake medical screenings” to detect drug use but conceded that, “the drug problem, both in and outside of the facility, continues to persist, making correctional healthcare even more challenging.”
Allegheny County Councilor Bethany Hallam, who has been a vocal critic of jail administration from her seat on the Jail Oversight Board, said she was concerned that the jail’s detoxification protocol itself was putting inmates at risk.
“This is two drug-related deaths in intake in the past few weeks,” she said. “They were safer using drugs out on the streets than they were inside the Allegheny County Jail.”
This past winter, county officials released a study of jail deaths conducted by the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare. While a review of those deaths found “no significant trends or common factors that would show a particular weakness or gap in operations,” the report recommended improvements in a number of areas, including the handling of prisoners in detox.
While the jail had a “detox nurse” on staff, it found, the staffer worked only on weekdays, a schedule the report said was “inadequate for the management of these patients. Our review identified multiple patients whose detoxification was poorly managed.” The survey found at least one other case, involving a 36-year-old man who died in September 2021, whose death was tied to opioid withdrawal.
But the report praised the jail for incorporating recommendations in other areas, particularly suicide prevention. And jail spokesperson Jesse Geleynse said other improvements were being adopted “but require retraining of staff, updating our policies and procedures, and working closely with our healthcare partner, Allegheny Health Network.”
Death from substance use, particularly alcohol and depressants, poses an increased risk to those behind bars across the country, a trend some experts say is linked to the criminalization of drug use, a lack of access to treatment outside of jail, and the effects of addiction itself on the body.
“The Allegheny County Jail is not unique,” said Geleynse.
